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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29054688">Pretty girl</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToxicPineapple/pseuds/ToxicPineapple'>ToxicPineapple</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Femslash February 2021 [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Conversations, F/F, Femslash February, First Meeting, Fluff, Mermaid Maizono Sayaka, Ohhh yeaaa babey, Pirate AU, Pirate Fujisaki Chihiro, Romance, She/Her Pronouns for Fujisaki Chihiro, The Inherent Homoeroticism of Saving A Girl's Life, mermaid au</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 07:21:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,192</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29054688</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToxicPineapple/pseuds/ToxicPineapple</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I--” Chihiro blinks, and swallows, looking back up into the mermaid’s face. She’s smiling, still, in that friendly way, her head tilted to the side, and as Chihiro tries to regain her composure enough for a response, it occurs to her that the mermaid is perhaps the most beautiful woman she’s ever seen. The thought sends a rush of colour through her face, and Chihiro looks away to try and hide it. “You’re… a mermaid.”</p><p>“Really? I hadn’t noticed,” the mermaid giggles. She lifts a hand to cover her mouth, and Chihiro looks at the scales on her forearm, how they glimmer in the pale sunlight that streams in from overhead.</p><p>---</p><p>Chihiro takes a tumble overboard and is saved by a mermaid.</p><p>---</p><p>Femslash February day three: Pearl</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Fujisaki Chihiro/Maizono Sayaka</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Femslash February 2021 [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137446</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Pretty girl</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>written for femslash february day three! the prompt i used was "pearl" and you can see the series description for the rest of the prompts</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Chihiro barely manages to gasp before her back hits the water, the wind knocking out of her lungs as she’s sent down beneath the surf, bubbles fluttering around her entire body and passing her on the way to the surface.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The salt stings her eyes, but she forces them open, her hands flying up to cover her mouth so she won’t take in a mouthful of water. She needs to reorient herself and swim back up to the surface so that Oowada can see her when he throws down a life saver, but Chihiro is dizzy, both from the blow on her head that preceded her tumble off the side and from the lack of oxygen; dark spots are starting to dance around in her vision and the light from the sky is getting darker. Chihiro assumes that it’s because she’s falling unconscious, and not because of how deep she is-- because she can’t be </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>deep, at least, not yet.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It all happened so quickly onboard that in the moment before Chihiro got knocked off, she was barely able to process what was happening. She was watching Kuwata and Togami argue, standing off by the railing with Asahina. And she’d been nervous, especially when the first punch flew, because despite being a pirate Chihiro has always hated conflict, but she hadn’t expected the fight to travel to where she was standing on deck, nor was she expecting Togami to duck out of the way of a blow right as Kuwata’s fist went flying over to where Chihiro was standing, and, well…</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The horror in his blue eyes as Chihiro fell was apology enough, she thinks. If she survives this, she’ll probably forgive Kuwata without having to be asked about it. It’s not really in her nature to hold grudges, anyway, not least of all over an accident. The only problem is getting there, because Chihiro’s head has begun to pound from the oxygen deprivation, and actually, aren’t human beings supposed to float? Why isn’t she coming up to the surface naturally?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>…It’s getting harder to think, actually, Chihiro should really do something about that.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A dark shadow passes her overhead, and Chihiro thinks, </span>
  <em>
    <span>that’s quirky, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and then her eyes close, and she feels something soft brush her face. She stops herself from giggling at the sensation, because somewhere in the corner of her mind she registers that that would be a waste of oxygen, but the corner of her lip twitches into a smile, and something warm cups her cheek, and then--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--all of a sudden, Chihiro’s face is dry. She gasps, and coughs, hoarsely, choking up salty water, her eyes fluttering open. There’s water weighing down her eyelashes, and for a moment having her eyes open now stings just as much as it did when she was submerged in water, but Chihiro is too busy adjusting to the fact that she can breathe to think about it too hard.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She gives herself a few moments to come back to her senses, coughing, her hands (which are wet, but surrounded by air, not water) coming up to cover her face, but when she does, she opens her eyes, her chest heaving, and turns to look directly into a pair of dark blue eyes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Ah!” Chihiro jolts, and moves back a little. A hand with thin but webbed fingers extends and curls around Chihiro’s upper arm, as thought to stop her from moving so far, and Chihiro’s stomach flops at the touch, but she relaxes slightly when she sees the smile on the face of the other woman. Her canines are slightly pointed, but her eyes are friendly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sorry, I didn’t mean to touch you without permission. My bubble is fragile, so I didn’t want you to move back and break it and drown, y’know?” The girl’s Japanese is accented, but Chihiro doesn’t recognise it. She doesn’t care much to try and figure out what kind of accent it is regardless, because she’s too distracted with the woman’s appearance.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Most notably, there are gills lining the sides of her neck. Her skin is pale and slightly blue tinted, and the whites of her eyes are green, complementing the sapphire blue of her irises. There are two large, feathery gills fluttering where a human’s ears would be, and her hair is long and blue, fanning out behind her. She isn’t wearing any clothes, Chihiro thinks, but her chest is smooth and sleek and scaly, and at her waist, there’s…</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A fish tail. A long, blue, shimmering fish tail, that swishes back and forth in the water beneath the bubble the girl has created around the two of them. Chihiro’s standing-- or floating, rather-- in front of a mermaid.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I--” Chihiro blinks, and swallows, looking back up into the mermaid’s face. She’s smiling, still, in that friendly way, her head tilted to the side, and as Chihiro tries to regain her composure enough for a response, it occurs to her that the mermaid is perhaps the most beautiful woman she’s ever seen. The thought sends a rush of colour through her face, and Chihiro looks away to try and hide it. “You’re… a mermaid.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Really? I hadn’t noticed,” the mermaid giggles. She lifts a hand to cover her mouth, and Chihiro looks at the scales on her forearm, how they glimmer in the pale sunlight that streams in from overhead. A quick glance upwards tells Chihiro that they’re about fifteen feet below surface, floating, staying still, in a large bubble. Chihiro’s legs are still out in the water-- she can feel seaweed twisting around one of her ankles-- but her upper half is protected.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I… how did you do this?” She gestures vaguely around at the bubble, trying not to brush the sides of it, so as not to drown, like the mermaid said. “And… why did you save me? Y-You are saving me, right? You’re not…” Well, Chihiro had been about to say, </span>
  <em>
    <span>going to eat me, </span>
  </em>
  <span>but that’s kind of rude, Chihiro thinks, unless the mermaid </span>
  <em>
    <span>is </span>
  </em>
  <span>planning on eating her, in which case… well, she’ll cross that bridge when she gets there.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m not going to eat you,” the mermaid says, smiling. Chihiro feels her face flush. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Was what I was thinking that obvious…? </span>
  </em>
  <span>She brushes off the thoughts, though, as the other woman speaks again. “I don’t always save sinking humans, you know? But you’re really cute! And my intuition told me that you’d be worth saving!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Cute… </span>
  </em>
  <span>Chihiro shakes her head quickly to rid her face of its blush. “A-Ah… okay, I guess that makes sense,” she allows, though her stomach is doing flips, and for some reason she finds it hard to meet the mermaid’s eyes. “Um, well… thanks for saving me, I,” she should probably ask to be brought back up to her ship-- Oowada must be worried about her-- but when she looks at the mermaid again she can’t help that the question that comes out of her mouth is, “what’s your name?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh!” The girl lights up, like she hadn’t been expecting Chihiro to ask. “Hmmm… well,” she touches her cheek with a finger. “You can call me Sayaka, okay?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sayaka…” Chihiro repeats. That sounds familiar to her, somehow. She trails off, looking at the other woman for a moment.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I have a real name, too,” Sayaka explains, “but you wouldn’t be able to pronounce it. Human dialects are a lot different from my native tongue.” She smiles. “Sayaka was a name I heard when I was near the surface. Some kind of famous musician, I think.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That’s right!” Chihiro nods with realisation, smiling. “I thought that was familiar to me… th-though, I wasn’t suspecting you of borrowing the name, I just… recognised it.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sayaka giggles. “Don’t worry about offending me, I’m really not going to eat you, y’know.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That hadn’t been why Chihiro was nervous just now, but fear is a better answer than </span>
  <em>
    <span>hhhh pretty girl </span>
  </em>
  <span>anxiety, so sure, they’ll go with that. “R-Right…”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What’s your name?” Sayaka prompts, with another smile, and Chihiro feels her heart flutter slightly, even though she’s… just being asked for her name. She clears her throat into a fist and ducks her head a little before looking back at Sayaka.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Chihiro. Um, well, my surname is Fujisaki, and that’s what most people call me, but I don’t know if mermaids have family names…”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Not often,” Sayaka says, giggling again. “Chihiro is fine, I think. It’s a pretty name.” Her eyebrows tilt and she shifts a little closer to Chihiro, whose face flares red again with the proximity. “It’s fitting for a pretty girl like you!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>A pretty girl like me, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Chihiro thinks. She shifts her hand to cover her mouth, flustered.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Well, I’d better take you back up,” Sayaka sighs. “Your friends are probably worried, right?” She shifts closer, putting a hand on the small of Chihiro’s back. “I’ll swim you back up, if that’s okay? If you don’t want me to touch you, we can do a different way, but--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“W-Wait!” Chihiro bursts out, and Sayaka looks at her, eyebrows raised. Chihiro bites her lip, embarrassed by her volume, and takes a moment to recover her pride, and the colour of her face. “Um, well… I just, wanted to ask… can I see you again?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh,” Sayaka blinks, but smiles, after a moment. “Well, sure you can. Maybe I’ll swim alongside your ship for a while.” Her eyes turn up to the hull of the ship, shimmering thoughtfully. “Or… maybe…” Sayaka is quiet for a moment, and then she lifts her hand from Chihiro’s back. “I’ll be right back, okay?” she says, before she ducks out from the bubble, beaming at Chihiro before swimming down towards a patch of coral beneath them.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Chihiro watches her, out of a lack of other options, admiring the way Sayaka’s tail moves as she swims, her long, blue hair trailing behind her. The mermaid disappears for just a moment before reemerging, swimming up and popping through the bubble again with a little splash of salt water. One of her hands is cupped.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Here you go,” Sayaka holds out her hand, and resting in the middle of her palm is a single, pale, shiny white pearl. Chihiro hesitates for a moment, and Sayaka jostles her hand slightly as though to encourage her, so Chihiro reaches out and accepts the pearl, tucking it into the seat of her own palm. “Whenever you want to see me, just drop this off the side of your ship, okay? And I’ll swim on up to give it back to you!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For some reason, the proposition makes Chihiro’s heart flutter. She looks up at Sayaka with a shaky smile, curling her fingers around the smooth white orb. “A-Alright, I’ll do that. Um, are you sure it’s really okay for you to be following behind my ship? Don’t you have… places to be? People to visit?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh, not really,” Sayaka shakes her head. “I have other mermaid friends, but I see them around every so often. For the most part we travel alone.” She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “I have nothing to do with my time aside from swimming around and seeing parts of the ocean that I haven’t before! So I might as well follow behind you. You seem like a good enough friend, and I’ve been eager to learn more about humans for the longest time, you know.” Sayaka’s smile broadens. “Or maybe I just want to be able to follow you around so I can eat you!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That makes Chihiro laugh, covering her mouth will her free hand, and an odd look appears on Sayaka’s face, almost like she’s proud of herself. Chihiro shakes her head a little. “Okay. I’m going… to trust that you don’t actually want to eat me,” she says, “and I’ll use the pearl when I want to see you again.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Good!” Sayaka nods. “Make sure to use it soon, okay? I’ll get lonely down here.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Chihiro hums a little bit. If that’s her incentive, then she’ll have to. She nods, and Sayaka wraps an arm around her waist, telling her to take a deep breath before she pops the bubble and sends them up to the surface, where she’s received by her crew, and the concern on their faces.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Later on into the evening, Chihiro wraps her blanket tighter around herself, closing her fingers around that pearl again. She won’t use it so soon after meeting Sayaka, and especially not right now, when everyone is still keeping a close eye on her. It’s not that Chihiro thinks any members of her crew would </span>
  <em>
    <span>do </span>
  </em>
  <span>anything to Sayaka-- the most anyone would do is maybe, from Togami, call her a slur or something, which would be gross but not dangerous-- but she… mmm.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She sort of wants to keep this discovery to herself for now, that’s all. This friendship. She brings the pearl to her lips and kisses it, closing her eyes. Her chest flutters slightly when she pictures the way that Sayaka’s blue hair shimmered under the water. Chihiro hopes she’ll see her again soon.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>funnily enough not one word in this fic addresses chihiro's gender and if you try to come at me in the comments i will Obliterate you</p></blockquote></div></div>
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